


Nobody said it was easy (but no one ever said it would be so hard)

by juxtapose



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-17
Updated: 2012-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:44:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juxtapose/pseuds/juxtapose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-"The Reichenbach Fall". Therapist Ella Thompson knows John Watson enough to understand he won't express what he's feeling to her. But she knows he'll talk to Sherlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nobody said it was easy (but no one ever said it would be so hard)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there, I'm here again. I'm dipping into the Sherlock fandom quite a bit lately. I hope you guys don't mind. XD We don't know much about Ella so I tried to do my best with her. Anyway, enjoy? DISCLAIMER: I own nothing.

WEEK ONE

"What happened, John?"

"Sher . . . My best friend, Sherlock Holmes, is dead."

WEEK TWO

Therapist Ella Thompson tilts her head to the right in what seems like the millionth attempt to catch her client's eye. She watches as he fidgets in his seat, then stares out the window, then darts his eyes to the floor.

"John," she says, leaning back in her chair, "I've asked you to start coming to see me every week again. I'm sure you understand why? Loss is something that can't be dealt with all at once, John. It takes time."

John Watson finally looks up, eyes big with weariness and unadulterated pain. "I've told you I'm all right," he replies, which, by the crack in his already tired and raspy voice, clearly means he isn't.

Ella doesn't say that, though. It's not her job. Her job is for her patients to realize themselves what she already knows, and to help them work through it. Instead, Ella goes on to break the deafening silence beginning to rise again: "What have you been up to in the last week, John?"

He chuckles bitterly. "Not much."

"Tell me anyway."

"I . . . " John clamps his mouth shut again, trying to choose his words. Ella knows this version of Dr. John Watson. It's the man she first saw a year and a half ago, just out of Afghanistan. Broken. He tries again: "I went to visit his grave, like I told you I would. Talked, erm . . . talked. To him."

"And how did that go?"

He shrugs. "He didn't exactly talk back."

Ella leans forward now, looking John in the eyes, her voice soft: "But did you tell him everything you wanted to say? That's the important part."

"I don't think I could have. There was so much . . . things shouldn't have . . . I think of things I want to say to him every second of every day."

There is a very long silence between them. Sunlight streams quietly through the window, illuminating the dark circles under John's eyes, his hunched position in the chair across from Ella.

"I want you to imagine for a moment, John, that I am your friend Sherlock Holmes. Or, maybe, that this pencil on my desk here is Sherlock. Or this coffee mug. Pick an object, and speak to it as if you're speaking to him. It won't do any good to keep what you're feeling bottled up, John."

John shakes his head a little, mumbling something about how that sounds ridiculous. She deals with clients like John on the daily. Ella's learned over the years to put her work and responsibilities as a therapist first and her emotions second, but it's often difficult. She'd grown quite fond of John in getting to know him, in helping him out of his little funk and convincing him to start a blog. Ella wants to help. She wants to help John help himself.

So she waits patiently, waits to listen to all of John's words unsaid, despite his reluctance. And slowly but surely, with a clear of his throat and a tap of his foot, John finally begins to speak.

"When I first met you, Sherlock," John says, staring somewhere past Ella's shoulder, "I had no idea what I'd be getting myself into." _Good,_ Ella thinks, _This is good._

"I thought you were completely off your rocker, for the most part, but as I got to know you . . . no, wait, that part didn't change. You are completely off your rocker. But in a brilliant sort of way. Which I've told you multiple times and, let's face it, you bloody love hearing it.

When we solved our first case together--well, when you solved it, mostly--I hadn't felt so alive in a long time. You made me remember what life is supposed to be like. Taking risks. Always moving forward and never standing still for very long. For all your talk about human sentiment, about how boring it is and how unnecessary--you reminded me of what it was to be human, when I thought I couldn't anymore. You challenged me, pushed me to my limits, and half the time I wanted to punch you in the face. But the fact still remained that we were more alike than either of us maybe ever understood. You were dysfunctional, and so was I, and for the first time, I wasn't alone."

Ella smooths a hand over the notebook on her lap and thinks, _Now we're getting somewhere._ And Ella Thompson listens as the story of John Watson and Sherlock Holmes unfolds in fragments, before her.

WEEK THREE

"I'm moving out of the flat soon, Sherlock. There's a place not too far from Baker Street, close enough to the clinic . . . Mrs. Hudson and I got rid of all your weird little trinkets. Good God, it took ages. I don't think you even knew how much crap you had lying around our flat. For someone whose brain is organized into a, what was it--'mind palace', the same couldn't be said about your--our living space. Although I think if I ever get a flat with someone else again, one of the requirements will be that he keeps eyeballs in the fridge. Just doesn't seem a normal day until I see body parts staring at me instead of a carton of milk.

"I hate how you always used to interrupt me. Before now I wouldn't have been able to get a word in edgewise without you yammering on about something that seemed more important to you. I hate how utterly inconsiderate you were most of the time. I hate that you never did the shopping. I hate that you always knew how to persuade _me_ to do the shopping. You shouted all the time about things I mostly couldn't even keep up with, a lot of the time you shouted at _me_ , but somehow it would all be fine again when you grinned at me in that sort of way that makes me want to smile back. The kind I didn't really see the last couple of months before . . .

"I hated a lot of things about you, Sherlock, but they were also the things I wouldn't have traded for the world."

(Before John leaves, Ella has to say: "I've noticed you're using your cane again, John."

"Yeah, erm, leg's bothering me again.")

WEEK FOUR

"I'm angry, Sherlock. I'm angry about all the things we had left to do. Life wasn't finished with us. With you. You taught me so much, but I . . . But there's things I wanted to. . .

There's something we never talked about. Do you remember? It was my birthday and you'd forgotten because you were on a case and your bloody iPhone had to remind you. Your iPhone, Sherlock, you complete dick. But in a very-unlike-you gesture, you opened a bottle of wine at the end of the day and said we'd celebrate.

Maybe I'd had a little too much wine. It was dark, it was late, and we were so close . . . I could feel you just so, so close, and then we . . . Would you call it a kiss? It was just a brush, and it was messy and odd and nothing like you see in the cinemas because I was thrown and you looked bloody confused, like this was the toughest case you'd ever tried to solve--ours. The case of me and you. We never talked about it, and we never talked about how when it happened, you didn't pull away. You didn't, Sherlock.

And I'm angry I couldn't . . . I couldn't ever . . . I don't know if you fully understood. But it's how people connect with each other, Sherlock. I wish I could've shown you more before you went away. I always joked how people would talk, about you and me . . . and maybe they wouldn't be lying. So, did you, Sherlock? Did you ever figure us out? Because I know what I wanted out of all of it, in the end. I just wanted you to let me care. About you. For you."

WEEK FIVE

"So do you want to know what I think, Sherlock Holmes? I think you're an arrogant idiot. I think you're brilliant and horrible and wonderful and obnoxious. You don't deserve what happened to you. What Moriarty did to you. I wish it had been me. And I miss you. God, I miss you. And I love you."

His last words seem almost final, and when he doesn't speak further, Ella realizes that John is finished. Finished with what he's had to say all along. She says, "How do you feel?"

John's lower lip trembles a bit, and he turns to stare at the window. "Done," he says simply. He looks at his watch and, evidently realizing that their hour is up, stands and limps away without so much as a glance back in her direction.

Ella bites her lip and closes her eyes. Over these few weeks she's learned how very much Sherlock Holmes meant--still means to John Watson.

Curiosity creeps up on her, though, as she remembers that throughout these five weeks, John had kept his gaze fixated not on any object she could see in plain sight, but something behind her. Turning in her chair, Ella tried to follow the path of John's stare, and found herself meeting the blank wall of her office. Nothing more.

In past experience with this technique, Ella had noticed her clients picking objects they could somehow relate to the person they were "talking to", or talk directly to Ella herself.

But now Ella makes the alarming realization that John, in his blank stares at blank walls, has nothing tethering him. Nothing to hold him here, now that Sherlock is gone.

She closes her notebook.

In Ella Thompson's professional opinion, John Watson is still moving slowly through the stages of grief. These exercises had been intended to uplift the feelings he's been holding in since his friend's untimely death. In time, John would learn to cope with these feelings and lead a normal life.

But in Ella Thompson's personal opinion, there is only this fact:

Broken hearts don't mend easy. And some don't mend at all.


End file.
